National to look at road tolling

By HELEN TUNNAH

National will explore congestion pricing or tolls as a means of improving traffic flows, particularly in Auckland.

Party leader Don Brash is expected to unveil this morning his party's policy direction on transport, with an emphasis on tackling infrastructure development and congestion.

He told the Herald this week that he expected Aucklanders tired of sitting in traffic jams would prefer to pay some form of congestion charge if it eased snarl-ups.

"People who are stuck in a traffic jam for an hour and a half would be absolutely over the moon if they could remove that inconvenience for two or three dollars," he said.

"But what they want to know is that in paying a toll or whatever, they're actually going to get rid of the congestion. They don't want to be paying a toll and be stuck in traffic."

The Government's roading proposals announced last year promised $1.62 billion over 10 years to kickstart a programme of road building and public transport.

They also signalled that tolling would be explored, although Finance Minister Michael Cullen said social and environmental impacts would need to be weighed against economic benefits.

Dr Brash has hinted National will back tolling and "pricing of road usage".

"One of the issues that we need to face in New Zealand is that because roads are free at point of use, you get incredible peaks in usage, which make life fairly inconvenient for a lot of people," he said.

"We have to look at the question of congestion pricing."

He will also in his speech discuss how roads, including local roads, are funded.

Dr Brash said National was looking at how the Resource Management Act and Land Transport Management Act affected construction, or delayed construction consents.